Rhetorics, Communication and Information Design

RCID @ 4Cs 2016

RCID faculty and students appeared at 4Cs 2016 in Houston, TX, to tackle the theme of “Writing Strategies for Action.”

Our own Lauren Woolbright and Kate Hanzalik presented alongside Purdue University’s Samantha Blackmon, Alex Layne, and Alisha Karabinus (of Not Yo Mama’s Gamer fame) in the panel “’Listen!’ The Legend of the Social Justice Warrior, or Games and Social Advocacy.” Lauren’s presentation, “Designs That Play: Why Scholars Should Design Games,” argues for a more inclusive place for gaming in academia. Kate’s presentation “Setting an (Activist) Place at the Table: TRPGs as Tools of Political Subversion” uses her own experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons to frame a discussion about the tabletop as a space for political/rhetorical invention.

Kate Hanzalik also helped facilitate the workshop “Active Support for Radical Pedagogies: The Postpedagogical Movement, Project-Based, Multigenre, and Multimodal Approaches;” her talk, “Transmedia Activism: A Post-Pedagogy for Parity” tackled the topic of multimodal activism as a post-pedagogical framework for participatory education.

On the Sky Walk, Sam Fuller presented his poster titled “A History of Hotdogs: Critical Eating in an Age of Foodieism,” engaging passers-by with a detailed timeline visualizing the history of the contemporary hot dog and using this as a springboard for conversations about cooking & eating as composition practices (as well letting them sample his adaptation of an ancient Roman sausage recipe from Apicius!).

RCID faculty were also featured: David Blakesley spoke at the Intellectual Property Caucus standing group panel “Taking Action on Intellectual Property with Open Educational Resources”; Jan Holmevik presented “Ludic Literacy: The Missing Link”; and Victor Vitanza was featured in the panel “Writing’s Wreckage: What Happens When Writing Fails.”

As always, the RCID program was thrilled and honored to have a presence at 4Cs; we’re already looking forward to next year in Portland!